Speed Read (tldr) of How OHDELA Uses Possip Pulse Checks to Remove Barriers
Enhanced Family Engagement: OHDELA uses Possip to facilitate regular, real-time communication with families, replacing less effective end-of-year surveys with monthly feedback opportunities. This approach helps break down barriers and ensures family voices are actively heard and acted upon.
Data-Driven Adjustments: Feedback from Possip has led OHDELA to implement significant changes, such as introducing “WYN Days” to better meet students’ needs for flexible learning and increased interaction with teachers. This responsiveness has improved student and family engagement.
Effective Feedback Management: OHDELA employs a multi-tiered system to review and act on Possip feedback, involving school leaders and administrators in prioritizing and addressing concerns. This structured approach ensures swift action on both immediate issues and broader trends.
Read below for resources, tips, and the why!
The Ohio Distance and Electronic Learning Academy (OHDELA), a thriving full-time K-12 online charter school, serves thousands of students across Ohio. Unlike traditional brick-and-mortar schools, OHDELA receives state funding based on the actual hours students spend engaged in learning both online and offline.
Erin Milligan-Mattes, Possip Educational Consultant and a seasoned instructional leader who served in the Commissioner’s Office at the Tennessee Department of Education, shares best practices and advice to remove barriers to family engagement from Possip Partner, OHDELA.
OHDELA’s unique approach emphasizes the importance of providing a high-quality, engaging educational experience and actively involving families to ensure students stay connected. With Possip, OHDELA makes family engagement in a virtual context much easier!
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What is the value of OHDELA using Possip to engage families?
OHDELA uses Possip to break down communication barriers and create a valuable outlet for family feedback. Despite the school’s large size of 8,000 students and 400 staff, and its distributed virtual model, Possip ensures families can easily share their input.
As Chris Brooks, Head of School, explains, “Student and family engagement is an important part of how our school is funded. But more than the funding piece, I want to make sure that students and families are engaged in our curriculum and engaged in activities. We have a lot of outside of school events where we hope that families come together to create meaningful connections that, especially in the virtual school, are much more difficult to produce because students do not have the opportunity to interact with each other in the hallway or cafeteria or those common areas where students get to know each other outside of the classroom.
“Because we do have such a large student body and multiple reasons that families have chosen to attend school virtually, it’s helpful to be able to have one way to get their voice in decision making. It’s also helpful to ask families how they’re doing as a temperature check. Possip is a quick and easy way for them to interact with us and be able to give us their opinions on what’s happening”
How did your family engagement strategy shift with Possip?
Before using Possip, OHDELA depended on end-of-year satisfaction surveys that saw limited engagement and impact. Now, with Possip, families can share feedback routinely (once a month) via text or email and the school can respond in real-time, making the listening process more effective and actionable.
As Chris explains, “We did an end-of-year satisfaction survey. It was just harder to get that family voice because it was another email coming from the school and everyone was ready for summer! That’s hard because even though we want families to read everything we put out there and respond to everything we ask for, they’re busy. The information we did get was after the fact instead of the multiple checks that we’re doing now.”
Adjusting the School Schedule With Possip Data
In response to family feedback through Possip, OHDELA made several positive schedule changes, including replacing a full asynchronous day with “WYN Days” or “What You Need Days.” WYN Days allow students to catch up on work, have one-on-one time with teachers, enjoy alternating asynchronous time based on subject, and participate in family events. These changes have significantly boosted student and family engagement because they mee student and family needs more effectively.
Chris explains what he was hearing from families, “What we started to see in the Possip surveys was that students and families really missed this asynchronous time . Family feedback also indicated they wanted more one-on-one time with teachers and more small group interactions. And so through that feedback, we adjusted the schedule to put back some asynchronous time called “WYN Day – What You Need.” This allows for students to work independently and gives us the ability to create more one-on-one and small group options within the schedule.
Additionally, thanks to Possip feedback, leaders at OHDELA took proactive steps to adjust individual student schedules. When a family flagged an incorrect student schedule in a Possip Pulse Check and provided their name for follow-up, OHDELA leaders swiftly intervened. They promptly had the school counselor reach out to the family to address and resolve the scheduling issue.
Systems for Reviewing and Acting on Possip Data
To manage the substantial volume of feedback (some reports have over 1000 comments) from Possip Pulse Checks, OHDELA follows these strategic steps:
- Prioritize follow-up comments to address immediate concerns.
- Analyze trends to identify potential areas for district or school-level action.
- Delegate feedback and action items to school-level leaders when their expertise or context is more relevant.
- Streamline follow-up processes at both the school and district levels to optimize teacher time.
- Regularly compile and share positive feedback from Possip in Excel format with staff in order to recognize and celebrate the team throughout the school year.
OHDELA has developed a multi-tiered process for reviewing and leveraging Possip data to ensure swift and effective action. First, school leaders, including the Head of School, Special Education Director, Director of Academics, Director of Student Services, and Director of Operations, examine and respond to the data. Second, they delegate specific actions to school-level administrators for further follow-up, if necessary. At this point,school level principals and assistant principals are actively involved in analyzing the data and initiating follow-up procedures.
OHDELA has prioritized family engagement and initiated positive change throughout the school by listening to families. In spite of the challenges that come from leading a large, distributed virtual school using Possip has enabled OHDELA to cultivate a culture of communication and responsiveness. OHDELA has implemented strategic adjustments in scheduling, individual student support, and more to demonstrate its commitment to family voice and a high-quality educational experience for all students.
